


A Ship is Safest when in Portmanteau

by Nenagh24 (EverFascinated)



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-19 23:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17011485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverFascinated/pseuds/Nenagh24
Summary: “What is this supposed to be again?”Shepard blinked, still feeling a little slow after only four hours of sleep. The question slowly penetrated the fog and she turned to look, but it took another three slow blinks for her brain to connect the question to the object in Garrus’ hand.“A spork.”





	A Ship is Safest when in Portmanteau

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Fork + Mass Effect

“What is this supposed to be again?”

Shepard blinked, still feeling a little slow after only four hours of sleep. The question slowly penetrated the fog and she turned to look, but it took another three slow blinks for her brain to connect the question to the object in Garrus’ hand.

“A spork.”

“Yeah, I heard that the first time.” Damn it, the big lug was doing that humming thing that meant he was laughing at her. She’d like to see him do so well after so little sleep. (No, the siege doesn’t count, he never slept and therefore never had to fight his way back into coherence.) “The translator doesn’t know what it is though and just spits out the same word.”

The commander tried to smooth the ~~pout~~ frown off of her face because it probably wasn’t going to convince him to stop laughing any time soon. Eventually she was forced to give it up as a bad job and instead turned back to the ship’s equivalent of coffee which tasted at least twice as horrible for all that it contained less than half the caffeine.

“It’s exactly what it looks like.” Her grumbled response was probably intelligible as it had the Turian sighing.

“I know what it looks like, I even have a marginally good idea of what it can do given how the other humans have used it, but that doesn’t explain why it exists or what it’s intended use was supposed to be.”

Down at the other end of the galley Gabby, who was probably just getting off of a hellishly long shift based on what Shepard remembered happening before she passed out, just groaned something which may have included the words ‘not’, ‘enough’, and ‘for this’, but what ever she didn’t have enough of was lost in expletives and the metal of the table her face was pressed into. Shepard mentally noted a few of the curses and belatedly wondered what kind of effect Jack had on the engineering duo.

The brief interlude had given her enough time to let the weak yet highly addictive drug work it’s magic, so Shepard womanned up, took a deep breath, and turned to face another cultural difference. Hopefully this one wouldn’t end up in tears like the tattoo one did.

“A spork is a spoon-fork combination.” She watched Garrus’ head tilt a little to the side as the translation came through. His mandibles tucked in to his species’ version of a frown. 

“This design doesn’t allow for efficient liquid transportation nor does it posses adequate prongs to help hold food in place or move it to your mouth.” Her blank look of ‘please, continue to state the obvious’ must have crossed the language barrier easily as Garrus quickly continued. “I mean, most of the crew have been using them for eating, but I just hadn’t expected it to actually be the _intended_ use when it gives all of you so much trouble.”

Shepard shrugged in the face of this logic.

“It was created roughly three centuries ago and that’s still the go-to for penny-pinching government agencies. Be glad they didn’t try to make them Splayds.” His unimpressed look turns the tables and has her trying to contain her giggles (which she absolutely attributes to lack of sleep). “A spoon-knife-fork combo.”

“You’re having me on.” He looked more resigned then suspicious, so she didn’t feel bad trying to live down to his expectations.

“What can I say? We humans just love portmanteaus. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get back to eating my brunch with this spork and finish my coftea before I start snarking because I’m so hangry.”

The chorus of groans was music to her ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Portmanteaus are just an acceptable form of pun, right?


End file.
